Red Hat is taking a business-as-usual stance in the face of renewed rumblings from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer over the need for Red Hat Linux users to pay up. Ballmer has repeatedly claimed that Microsoft IP is found in Linux. "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to eventually compensate us," said Ballmer at a Microsoft event last week in London. But Red Hat itself has adopted a stance that keeps it above the Microsoft patent fray. "At this point, please reference our previous statements on this topic," said a Red Hat spokesman contacted Tuesday about Microsoft's statements on Red Hat Linux users. The spokesman pointed out a Red Hat blog posted "after the last FUD statements from Microsoft" in May, she said. Shuttleworth agrees.

What a great couple of articles. RedHat, instead of buckling to pressure and lashing out in turn, simply stated that they don't wont to lower themselves to MS' level and refuse to say anything new on the matter.

Shuttleworth has an interesting spin on matters too. Just check out this quote:

"Microsoft settles an average of one billion dollars in IP claims a year. Microsoft trades on IP violations all the time. It seems to wrong for them to use that same framework against open source."